A Narnian Story
by La Luna Nera
Summary: this story takes place after they children come back after the first book. it's a lonely afternoon for lucy, which she, once more, spends on longing for narnia, when something unexpected happens. i'm sorry for the bad title!


"Oh, my dear lad, have nights always been as lonesome as they are for me now?"

Lucy's voice seemed to be no more than a whisper, but her cat was still able to hear her. She raised her black and white head a little, eyeing Lucy with a puzzled look.

The young girl looked into the topaz eyes of her silent companion, who would never be able to give her an answer. She was not a Narnian cat, and so she would never speak to her nor any other human in this world.

Absentmindedly, Lucy started to stroke the only friend left tonight at home with her. Peter, Susan and Edmund had gone out with their parents, but Lucy felt too sick too leave home this day. But although she only was a child, she knew that this kind of sickness could not be cured by any medicine.

She missed Narnia so badly.

While she was looking through the window, the images of dancing fauns, running centaurs, the two beavers and all her other friends came back to her. She could almost see, how Aslan went away, going his own ways again after the battle, how Edmund finally got a friend of his dear horse Philip. She remembered the beach and bright shining stars at night, which had seemed so much more alive than those tiny dots on their own heaven, high above her. She could almost feel the leaves of the trees, how they were dancing around her, touching her cheek, asking her to join their dances…

She was sure that she would never forget the soft whisper of her most beloved cherry-tree, beneath which she used to sit together with Mr Tumnus…

Her heart seemed to stop beating for just the shortest moment, but the memory crushed down on her like a falling rock.

Mr Tumnus.

Of all the fauns she had met during her stay in Narnia, he was the only one she could be 100% sure of not forgetting. He had not only been her best advisor during the years she had spent as a queen of Narnia, but also the first friend she had made in that strange world. He had always been with her, throughout all the years. Whenever sorrow plagued her, he had tried to lift the heavy weight of responsibility off her shoulders. Whenever she had felt sick, she could have been sure of him sitting all day and night long next to her bed. And no matter when she wished to hear a song, he would be the first to take out his flute to play for her.

Tears started to flood her eyes, while Lucy remembered all the moments with him. She would cherish them forever and even longer, if possible.

"Ouch! What are you doing?!"

All of a sudden, her cat seemed to have gone crazy. She bit Lucy softly into the finger, and now she had jumped of her lap to jump onto the window sill. Over and over again she tapped with her paw against the glass.

Lucy hurriedly wiped away the tears on her cheeks with her sleeve and blinked to lift the salty curtain off her view.

"Do you want to go out? Don't you know that it's freezing cold tonight?" But though Lucy tried her best to convince her cat of staying in the house, she would not listen to her. So, after a few minutes, she opened the window.

With a fluent move, the cat left the sill and took her landing in the soft grass of the beautiful garden. Although the cool air from outside made the young girl shiver, she didn't close the window immediately, as she first wanted to watch her cat disappear into the shadows of the night. But the cat did not, as usual, just dash off. She turned around and, Lucy was sure she was not mistaking, called for her human friend. Lucy rubbed her eyes, but the cat still stood there, waving her tale at her, calling for her.

Lucy didn't know why, but she instantly followed her cat. Maybe it was, because she was so used to explore the world together with animals, as she had done so long in Narnia, or maybe it was because she felt like leaving her memories together with the house behind her.

She tiptoed after her cat, but it wasn't a long way to go, as her cat stopped all of a sudden and sat down beneath a big lantern. Lucy looked up, staring at the faint light on top of it for a second, but then turned her head to her pet again, trying to shake away the upcoming memories.

And then she recognized that the little paws were pointing at a letter right in front of the cat.

Cautiously, Lucy bent down and took the white envelop. It wasn't the shiny white of new bought paper, but a yellowish old white, as if the letter had been lying around for ages already.

She turned it around to have a look at the front, and although her hands were shaking badly and the words in front of her seemed almost to be dancing up and down, from the left to the right, she could instantly read the neat and at the same time wild handwriting, which showed her name.

Lucy sat down next to the lantern and let her cat lie down on her lap. She felt like falling into a dream, so surreal everything seemed to be now that she had seen this handwriting again. Mr Tumnus' own and very special handwriting.

And under the watchful eyes of her animally friend, Lucy started reading the letter:

_Dear Miss Lucy_

_So many things have happened since I've first seen you, standing under the lantern, when you still were a little girl. It wasn't at first sight that I realized you being a Daughter of Eve, and it took me even a little longer to see that I could never betray and give you away to the White Witch._

_Those days, you were a__n innocent young human, truthful and always valiant, although you knew that you might just be of little help to us Narnians. You've always been determined to do your best. _

_Oh, my dearest queen, I__ feel so happy to have been living with the pleasure of meeting you._

_But now my__ last days are fading, and you are gone.  
No one knows where our kings and queens, the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve, might have vanished to, but our hearts are breaking apart with that terrible loss. _

_And even more terrible does it feel for me…_

_Because you, my dearest of all the friends I have ever had, have taken such an important part of my life. I did not only serve you because I had been living under you as a free servant in the beautiful land of Narnia, and not only because I have been your advisor and best friend. I also was in your service, because I love you so badly, as badly as any faun in all Narnia could ever love another someone._

_Since the day we've first met and the day I've seen you for the last time, my love for you kept growing with every day._

_First, it only was like the care of an older brother for his younger sister, but as you grew up and became a young lady, a truly beautiful and amazing young Daughter__ of Eve, this love like a sibling's turned into a much deeper kind of love. _

_But now this first so beautifully growing __love is wounding my heart deeply with every day. Oh, my lady, my duchess, my queen and my best friend! Where have you gone? Why have you decided to leave us? Was it our fault, or simply the will of Aslan himself that took you away from us?_

_My span of life__ is not going to last very much longer, and me being an older faun with every day, I simply can't jump around like I used to. I'm not a joyful and naïve faun anymore, but an old storyteller, who is doing his best not to let the tales of the four great kings and queens vanish before their time. Until my last breath I'll tell about King Peter, the Magnificent, Queen Susan, the Gentle, King Edmund, the Just, and Queen Lucy, the Valiant._

_So if your tale__s should ever wither like old trees, it will be long after our time, my beloved queen. _

_I don't really __know why I'm sitting here now, next to the old lantern where we first met, writing on this old piece of paper, which you will never get a chance to read in all your life. Maybe it's just some silly thing that old creatures do._

_But now, I think, all th__at should have been said is written down. But to make sure you didn't miss the meaning of the letter, I will once tell you straight: I love you, Lucy. Somehow, I have always loved you, and so I always will, until the little of my days which is left for me will be over. I hope the last thing I'll think of in this life will be your gorgeous smile that has had me from the first moment on. And, whatever there will await me after my time in Narnia, I hope that Aslan will let me keep all the memories with you which I cherish so much!_

_And maybe, if we have some luck__, we'll see each other again in another kind of life, after both of us have died._

_I, for my part, hope so, my most beloved Queen, friend and lady who stole my heart and took it with her, wherever you may be now._

_Tumnus_

The very moment Lucy had finished reading, she could feel a soft breeze on her cheek, and a leave from the tree fell onto her shoulder.

While the young girl raised her eyes, she could hear the soft whisper of the trees in this upcoming wind.

Then she pressed the letter to heart and closed her eyes.

"Oh dear Mr Tumnus, don't worry about that", she whispered with a voice so small that no one could hear her. "I will never forget you, and I hope you'll somehow get to know how much I have loved in Narnia and still love you in this world, too!"

And after having said this, the branches of the trees above her shivered lightly, and Lucy new that, in some distant place she knew too well, another warm breeze ran over Mr Tumnus cheek now, so he would hear the words she hadd never said.


End file.
